What is wrong with you people? (http://www.montrealgazette.com/technology/Kent+confirm+Canada+pulling+Kyoto+pact/5780931/story.html)

Kent won't confirm Canada is pulling out of Kyoto pact

By MIKE DE SOUZA, Postmedia News November 29, 2011

Environment Minister Peter Kent skated around questions about Canada's potential pullout from the Kyoto Protocol on Monday, dismissing concerns that the country's credibility was at stake.

Kent said his international counterparts have been respectful in bilateral meetings of the Canadian government's view that the climate-change treaty must be replaced with a more comprehensive agreement that builds on progress from the last two United Nations annual summits.

"I've said any number of times in Parliament, Kyoto is the past," Kent said Monday at a news conference.

Kent has said that formally pulling out of the treaty is "an option" for Canada, but when questioned repeatedly by reporters, he declined to confirm or deny a CTV News report that Prime Minister Stephen Harper's cabinet has already decided to withdraw from the agreement after the Durban conference.

He said he preferred to answer questions about an announcement that the government was renewing funding over the next five years to support negotiations with the U.S. and scientific research to reduce pollution.

"This isn't the day," Kent said. "This is not the time to make an announcement (about Kyoto) beyond the announcement on the clean air regulatory agenda."

Canada, Japan and Russia have all told the international community earlier this year that they will not make new commitments under the Kyoto agreement after its first commitment period expires at the end of 2012. The Kyoto agreement, an update to the United Nations Convention on Climate Change, is the only legally binding treaty in the world that requires countries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions that trap heat in the atmosphere.

Nearly three dozen countries, including Canada, Japan and Russia, took on targets in the first phase of the agreement, which is based on a principle in the convention that developed countries are responsible for causing climate change and must act first to address the problem.

Harper and several members of his cabinet and caucus have previously questioned the scientific evidence linking human activity to global warming, describing the Kyoto Protocol as a "socialist scheme."

But Kent said Canada's anti-Kyoto stance was a key to a larger global agreement that requires the biggest annual sources of greenhouse gas emissions, such as the United States and China, to also take on targets that would stabilize emissions in the atmosphere and help the world avoid warming of more than 2 C above pre-industrial average temperatures - considered to be a dangerous threshold that could cause irreversible damage to the planet's ecosystems.

Kent described Canada's position as a "constructive" approach.

"There is an urgency to this," said Kent. "We don't need a binding convention, what we need is action and a mandate to work on an eventual binding convention."

Environmental groups from around the world immediately slammed Kent's message, calling Canada the worst country at the Durban conference and awarding it first and second place in its infamous "fossil of the day" awards.

Can they stop calling China and India "developing nations"...a status that makes them exempt from the most egregious cuts required in the treaty? If so, then we should all ratify any extension of Kyoto. If not, what's the point as there is no reason to hamstring our economy just to help the Chinese.

Ishara

11-29-2011, 01:09 PM

UGH. This government has made a practice of not answering direct questions, or evading responses - even during question period. Man up and admit that you're sacrificing Canadian credibility to the altar of Stephen Harper's ego. Cause it's not like our word means anything on the interabtional stage. But it's okay, let's just continue to squander 50 years of goodwill for the sake of ensuring that Harper doesn't feel bad...